What Does 1 Kings 16:13 Mean in the King James?
For all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, by which they sinned, and by which they made Israel to sin, in provoking the LORD God of Israel to anger with their vanities.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
One person’s missing can spread outward until a whole people takes on the emptiness it follows.
THE MEANING
The verse traces a chain: people miss the mark, draw others into that same missing, and provoke the LORD with what is empty. The effect reaches beyond the person at its center.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what you give yourself to in private cannot shape anyone else.
THE ROOT
הֶחֱטִיאוּ
hecheti’u
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss or err; in this causative form, to cause someone to miss.
“made Israel to sin” in this verse is hecheti’u. The verse uses the same root for their own missing and for causing Israel to miss. The shift from one to many is carried inside the word: one person’s misalignment becomes another’s.
ALSO GROWS
chata’: To miss or err.
חָטָא
The verse’s “they sinned” uses this same root, linking their own missing to the missing they cause.
chatta’t: Missing; in some contexts, an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
The root can name the deviation itself as well as what addresses it.
בַּהַבְלֵיהֶם
bahavlehem
GROWS FROM
הבל
To be empty or vaporous; hence, something fleeting or futile.
The word translated “vanities” names what lacks staying substance. The verse places this emptiness at the end of a chain where missing spreads, so its force reaches beyond the person who first takes it up.
ALSO GROWS
hebel: Vapor, emptiness, vanity.
הֶבֶל
This singular form gives the seed meaning behind “their vanities.”
wayyehvalu: They became vain or empty.
וַיֶּהְבָּלוּ
The same root can describe people taking on the emptiness they follow.
THE PATTERN
What people give themselves to can reshape them and spread its character through those who follow.
And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.THE THREAD
And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them.The Hebrew root הבל (hebel, “emptiness” or “vanity”) appears here as both what they follow and what they become. That makes the movement in 1 Kings sharper: the empty thing does not remain outside its followers; they take on its emptiness.
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